How We Will Save Money In 2026 (Part 6)

I know we all like a snack once in a while. But those bags of chips, Poppables, Cheetos, etc. cost a fortune now. $ 5.96 for quite a while for some of our favorites. They have come down to $5.00 now but I still won’t buy them for something that unhealthy. We still have a few in our pantry that we bought for company that we will use up this month. We have decided except for popcorn kernels, tortilla chips and salsa, nuts, and pretzels to make our party mix, we will not be buying them.

We have an electric popcorn popper and a microwave one. They both work really well. If you don’t have those, you can use a skillet or pan to pop yours on the stovetop. That is the way our parents and grandparents did it.

I purchased enough ingredients this year on sale to make two large canning kettles of Chex mix. Hubby made one yesterday. This will last us about 6-8 weeks. We use rice Chex, wheat Chex, Cheerio’s, pretzels, and 3 cans of mixed nuts in ours. Then he makes the sauce and bakes it stirring it at various times while it is cooking at 250 degrees. When you buy everything on sale, it costs less per serving than buying the equivalent bags of snacks.

We not only use tortilla chips with salsa but we use them to dip in our taco bowls and soups, and for other Mexican meals.

We have a variety of nuts in our freezer including pecans, walnuts, and cashews.

We also make our own dill dip and onion dip for eating celery, cucumbers, and carrots. If we are craving a chip to dip, we can make our own from sliced potatoes using our oven with the air fryer function.

I also consider ice cream, brownies, quick breads, cakes, pies, cookies, fudge, etc. to be snacks or desserts. When we are craving something sweet, we will make our own. I have some mixes on our shelves to use up first. We try to eat all of these things sparingly.

Our very favorite sweets are strawberries or SF pudding with zero whipped cream. We thaw our frozen strawberries during the winter or use the fresh in season. Pudding and fresh and canned fruit are a year round treat.

Our plan is to use up what we have and then get back to making things ourselves. It is so much cheaper to do it yourself and healthier too. I am really tired of making the big corporations rich.

Do you make your own snacks? Willing to share them with us?